Vice-Dean of the Department of Design, Dortmund University of Applied Sciences and Arts
Phantasma Atlantica
When an ambitious architect initiates and helps to finance a photography project of the highest artistic quality, this can mean one of three things: The topic is particularly exciting, the artists are extremely eager to work on this project, or the group of artists attend an educational institution that has won numerous accolades and enjoys an outstanding reputation, as do their professors.
In the case of this project, all three of these things are true. An institution like the Atlantic in Hamburg is not only a luxury hotel that draws people from every continent, with an elegant environment and stylish interiors for spending their days as well as nights. It also inspires highly talented and exceptionally well trained young photographers to create fanciful and thought-provoking images. The topic of the Atlantic is as elegant as the hotel, where they created these images, is glamorous. It was no surprise that such a venue would inspire my top students to exceptional creativity. But that they would ultimately produce such extraordinary visual artworks in a relatively short time frame – that is something that I, for one, could not have foreseen.
I cannot speculate here about the psychological origins of such works. However, I am both pleased and honored to have played a small role in this project. My thanks go to Ronald, Dimitri, Helen, Lisa, Klaus und Natalie.